Pyrum Innovations AG (PYRUM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to today's Earnings Call of the Pyrum Innovations AG due to the publication of the results of the financial year 2024. I'm delighted to welcome CEO, Pascal Klein; and CFO, Kai Winkelmann, who will start their presentation shortly. [Operator Instructions] So with this, I hand over to you, Mr. Klein.

Good morning, everybody, and also a warm welcome from my side. So I will start with the presentation, which should be shared already. Is that confirmed? Is it shared?

That is shared.

Okay. So we tried this time to make a presentation that is more or less a mix of the history of Pyrum and what is new. As we don't know from the participants who is very new to Pyrum and needs to catch up on basics. And many other of our investors have seen the basics for many times. So we are not focusing this presentation so much on the history and what we have already done, but a little bit more on what has been new recently. So for those who don't know us, we recycle tires. So one important fact starting from the beginning. This was the market we started with. Why? Because the ELT or end-of-life tire market is quite big, and it is a solid and clean waste stream. With almost 3.4 million tonnes in Europe, it is a very good resource for the recycling process and which is very important if you want to produce high-quality end products like we do, it needs to be a stable waste stream. And we see now something that we have already announced several years ago that the end-of-life tire market is changing. You can say that almost in the last 20 years, it was divided the same way. So about 50% of used tires were burned, mainly in cement plants. And 30% approximately of the market went to granulate. So that's what everybody has already seen. So children playground, soccer fields and all that stuff. And about 10% were exported to the third world, mainly India or China or Africa and about 10% unknown. So that was the more or less available part of the market that nobody did really take note of. And what we saw extremely in 2024 is that it changed a lot for the first time. So the granulate business went down. I can only say here around to 30% to around 25% and the burning went down from 50% market share to around 35% because there are a lot of different studies in the market from the ETRMA, from the cultural administration in Germany. So they are all quite similar, but they found out all the same feedback that the burning volume is going down and the granulate volume is going down and the only part of the market that is really increasing is the exports who went up to almost 30% or some studies even say 33%. So what is happening now, the burning reduces, the use on children playground and soccer field has been forbidden by the European Union in '23 with a grace period of 8 years. So that will be possible until 2031. But already today, as there is more and more demand from outside Europe and as the market is shrinking in Europe, more and more exported, and that cannot be the goal for all of us because the tire is an important resource for us in the future. And that's why we still stick with our predictions that the available tires in 2030 will be much higher than today. And I will also recap quickly on the process itself. Since the last presentation, not much has changed on the process itself. So there are no new findings, for example, that there's more or less oil or more or less carbon. So we are still at 1 ton of tires in one line. As you all know, we have now 3 lines at Pyrum in Dillingen. So the tires are coming from the partners we have since a long time, like Schwalbe, MICHELIN, Conti, Remondis, et cetera. We are still getting money for the tires. And for 1 ton of tires, we get approximately 15% to 25% of steel, which is sold to the market as it is and 0 to 100 kilograms of textile, which is also sold to the market for a small amount. So these euro signs show you a little bit what is the revenue and the bigger the Euro or the more Euro signs you see, the bigger is the revenue share in our business model. And the variation in steel and in textile fibers comes mainly from the input. So truck tires have more steel than car tires and bike tires have more textile than car and truck tires. Truck tires even have almost no textile. So to sum that up, we have 700 kilogram of rubber out of 1 ton of tires approximately. And out of that same 1 ton of tires, we create then 250 kilograms of oil. So 1/4 of the tire becomes oil approximately and about 31% so 310 kilos becomes coke. We call that internally [ TT ]. So that is then milled to about 10 microns, goes into a pin mixer to create small pearls. These small pellets or pearls are the standard in the industry, in the rubber and in the plastics industry. Then it goes into a dryer and we get out the pellets and that is sold today to Conti and Schwalbe, our 2 main offtakers for that and represents our biggest revenue stream, one from the volume because it's 31% of the input and also from the price per ton. The oil is slightly modified by taking out oil and floating particles that goes today mainly to BASF, who sells it to a lot of customers, but more on that later. And for the gas, we are happy to tell that our old combined heat and power plant is running or we have that developed. So we have 2 systems today, combined heat and power plants are working on engines to use our gas to generate electricity and heat for the dryer. But we also have now since 8 weeks in constant operation without technical issues, we have now also the turbines stable up and running, which is an alternative treatment system for the gas, which has the advantage to generate more heat. So the dryer from the pelletizing system is autonomous, so self-sustaining, and we still create enough energy for the Pyrum process, but we have to say turbines create less energy than a generator. After that, we have a gas washer and at the end, you have vaporized water coming out. So now when you drive along the Pyrum site and you see white smoke coming up, it's not that we found a new pope, but we still found one, but that's also good. But white smoke over the Pyrum plant is vaporized water and shows that we are nicely running. So history, that is in the presentation because you can download the presentation. I don't want to bother you with things from the beginning. Just that you remember, we started in 2008. Since '21, we worked with Michelin. Since 2019, we have an offtake agreement with BASF. Since '21, we worked with Continental. We had our IPO in Oslo in '21, in Frankfurt in '22. So I skipped that quickly. Very important was also with Schwalbe. We bought out in '23, the first 100% recycled tire or the tire itself contains 72% of recycling content, but 100% recovered carbon black from Pyrum. An important thing that we underestimated, I can say, in our company history was the auditing called VDA 6.3 as we wanted to bring our recovered carbon black in the automotive industry, you need to have an automotive auditing. And that was something that took almost 2 years and completely changed the structure of the company. So there has been a fume before VDA 6.3 and after VDA 6.3. But luckily, we can say that we passed it and that today, we are allowed to deliver security relevant raw materials into the automotive industry, which is a big, big, big milestone for us. So in '24, we have the ramp-up of Line 2 and 3, the 2 new lines. We started with the work for our new plant in Paris. We received the RCS certificate, which is the green label for the textile industry. Important, if you want to sell recycled polymers to brands like Audi, who is using polymers from BASF made with our oil. Schwalbe has announced that they convert 70% of their production to Pyrum recovered carbon black, which is a big milestone, and we are very happy for that. And more about Schwalbe a bit later. Yes, we had a capital increase end of last year. And I would say the biggest milestone last year was that we finally got the first long-term offtake agreement for recovered carbon black from Continental for a 10-year guaranteed bankable off-take agreement for the recovered carbon black quantity of the next plant -- of the next 2 plants. So what does that say? Now we finally have green light to sell all our oil and all our recovered carbon black. So the 2 biggest revenue streams for Pyrum is secured and sold for the next 10 years and not just of the existing plant, but also for the plants to come. In 2024, we made 2 new -- we declared 2 new patents, one for, we call it golden rCB together with Continental. So recovered carbon black that can be used in bigger volumes in tires together with Conti, and we extend our technology to carbon fiber reinforced plastics. So you know that from wind turbines, for example, or from planes. '25, so the year is now 5 months old, and we have already some good announcements this year. So our partner in Greece, our joint venture plant in Greece has received a permit beginning of this year. So it was the first joint venture plant receiving a permit outside of Germany. In February, we signed an agreement with VTTI, the biggest LNG terminal operator on earth and owned by, for example, Vitol and ADNOC. We built together with them a thermolysis plant in Antwerp. The goal here is very big, but more about that later. And our -- then also in February, our first JV partner received FID, so final investment decision. So here, things are moving on very quickly. So there will be a lot of new things to announce this summer. In February and in April, we received 2 announcements from the authorities. So in February, we have been told that our permit is completed and that they are happy with all documents. And in April -- mid of April, we received feedback that the environmental impact audit has been passed. So a very important milestone to get the final permit. And as of now, we hope every day to get the permit, but authorities, you cannot push them. They are really nice to us. We have really a very good relationship with the authorities, but you cannot push them hard. So we really hope that soon we get the permit there. And very recently, we finished a big technical due diligence together with the bank, and that one has confirmed us also now in with them that we have technical readiness level 9, 9 out of 9, meaning that more you cannot get. That's to say, technical readiness level 9 means you have an industrial process that has won for more than 1 year or 2 years, I don't remember exactly, but for a long time in a stable process and that it is a serial ready process. So more you cannot get. So that is also a big milestone to open discussion with project financing banks, which is expected from them to start discussions. So now that is the latest picture from the new plant in Dillingen. So our core plant, our showcase. As you can see here, the uphaul is now done. So those who have seen the last presentation, it was all sandy. It looked like a little bit desert around the plant. The plant was in ramp up, but -- and already running partly, but yes, at 500 tonnes, so that is done. The plant is running also. You see here a little bit the white smoke coming out of the chimney. So that's what I told you before, that is the vaporized water that is coming out. So to walk you through the plant. So the orange part, what became orange here is the shredder. That one has a capacity of 6 tonnes per hour. That's approximately 600 tires per hour. Here are the 2 new reactors, so Line 2 and 3. Then you have here the yellow part, that is the new power plant. As you can see, giant footprint. For those who have already visited the old plant, know that the old plant, the power plant was just a container. Now it has a footprint as big as the film unit itself. And then the blue part here in the back, that is the new mill pelletizer that is almost finished. So the assembling of the mill is done and the commissioning of the mill has started. The pelletizer is soon finished and starts also commissioning soon. Here, you have the oil tanks, which are underground, so you don't see them. Right here is the control room. That new control room controls the new factory and the old one, which is on the white, but you don't see it here on the picture because otherwise, the picture would have been too big. And here what becomes Altreifen, or gray here that has been done last month. It's a new area that we acquired to store more tires. If I would share a photo of right now, you would see that this plant is full with tires, but that picture is 2 weeks old. And what you see here in the background in darker green, that is our new maintenance and spare parts workshop. So there are 2 new areas, new -- the tire storage area and the maintenance and spare parts workshop. It's very important now for the expansion of the new plants and also for quality control of parts that we deliver for the new plant. So you can see here that our footprint is getting really huge. So about status quo in Dillingen, as said, that is new. Before we just spoke about what Pyrum is and what we can do, but now it's more a status update where we are. And you can see here that the lights are all on green. So we are happy about that. So TAD 2 and 3, 1 are stable at 600 kilo. So that means that we requested now the authorization to go in the next phase with Continental. We had a good finding. The last test run was only stopped after 7 weeks. Usually, there is a cleaning after 4 weeks. But this time, we were running 7 weeks nonstop without a cleaning stop. That has the result that I don't know if I can say too much about that, but that gives us a clear idea that we may have found the sweet spot of operation now In Line #2. So that there will be fewer maintenance stops in the future, and that could potentially increase the throughput of the plant. I don't want to tell too much about that already now, but we keep the word innovation in Pyrum Innovations and our goal is to reduce the maintenance stops as much as possible. And yes, I said not every 4 weeks now, but now every 8 weeks, and we even have now the actual one is planned for 10 weeks. Line #2 is now in its 8 weeks of operation and line #2 is in the third week of operation since the last cleaning stop. So that looks more than good. And the combustion shining wells are also running again after, and that was in our press release and our newsletter in the first quarter that we had an issue with the burning chamber in the power plant that is repaired. So that was sadly a misconstruction or miscalculation on how much heat can the wall inside resist to. And good info is that our gas has more energy than predicted. So the chamber was hotter than predicted, and that was adapted now and there should be nothing happened anymore. So from the shredder, we have put a new shredder team together, and now we started with overnight maintenance to increase the throughput of the shredder, and that helps us now to finally get more material through the shredding so that the whopper hunger of the 2 new lines of Pyrum can be accomplished. So that is also good. And the power plant, as said, the combustion chamber is now almost since 8 weeks in error-free operation. The changing in the bricks, which are inside the burning chambers, the ceramic bricks was the right one. There's just some software problems that people need to accept some things quite often on the computer, but that is -- yes, if that is the last thing to solve, that is easy game. So now coming to the most important part of the plant, which is the status quo on the new mill and pelletizer. So here, you see some pictures on the right. And all I can tell you is the pictures don't show at all the size of that mill and pelletizer. It is the biggest mill and pelletizer for recovered carbon black worldwide. And yes, if you visit it in real life, everybody who has seen it was shocked about the size and the technical finesses that are in it. So the earthwork foundations are all done. Mill is mechanically and electrically fully assembled. So the first ramp-up started in last week on the 5th of May. And the handover of the keys of the plant is still planned by Hosokawa in July '25 with the maximum test, of course. Currently, we have 4 weeks delayed in the construction of the pelletizer due to delayed parts from the supplier, but they are doing all the best to catch that up now in the ramp-up. So -- but 4 weeks delay on such a big plant is very, very little. So about that, it looks all good. Now coming to the new Pyrum plant in Perl-Besch with the name GreenFactory II. So since the last presentation, what has happened on the left side, you see the building side -- drawing of the building site. So you see the green part was already prepared in 2024. In the first part now in Q1 of '25, the blue parts here were already prepared. So the land was prepared so that we could start. You can also do this preparation in January or February when we cut trees and prepare the site. So that was done. So the whole site is now prepared so that we can start working there once the permit is there. Still 25,000 square meters, maximum building high 25 meters, 20,000 tonnes. Here, we have a changing -- everything that changed since the last public presentation is red or green. Why? Because the price went a little bit up of the investment volume, but not the plant become more expensive with the investors we have behind and the banks we are talking to, mainly the project financing banks, they asked us to add an investment price a 10% contingency. That is a security adder and the financial cost doing building and the OpEx costs doing ramp-up. So that includes now everything, not just the building price of the plant itself, and we changed the shredder and the mill and pelletizer to 24/7 operation because that makes the product much better, mainly in the mill and pelletizer from a quality perspective. Here, you see a picture on what the building site looks like today. So you see it's a flat site now that can be started. So I said, we prepared the site. Next steps can only be done up site itself once the permit is there. Mid of February, we had the [Foreign Language] of the authorities, meaning that they have everything they are asking from us. And mid of April was the official publication that the environmental impact assessment. So Homburg an der Saar audit has passed. So now important on the new projects. So here you see the map of Europe on the left side with all our running projects. So this is a mix of our own projects like in Perl-Besch or joint venture projects or external projects like VTTI or SUEZ. So we have over 20 projects in pipeline. 10 projects have started. So officially started means they are contracts, and we are generating turnover because we work for these projects. In 6 countries, 2 are in the -- 7 are in the permitting process, 2 have a granted permits, so that is Greece and partly a Czech. And one project is not yet in the permitting process, but soon to be. So we are speaking here of an investment volume for all these brands of over EUR 600 million and a market share of the European end-of-life tire market of about 5.2%. So this is a very important slide according to me because it shows a little bit the speed in which all these projects are going forward. So all the black picks are 12 months old. All the green picks are new in the last 12 months. So you can see in the last year, all these projects, most have secured their capitals or big part of the capital. All of the green picks are -- the permitting process has really started. Here, the first permits are we saved. We have the first FIDs. And yes, blue means in progress. So it's very soon that we hopefully can announce it that we get the permit in Perl-Besch and also that we signed soon the engineering contract with UNITANK. So that are things that are in progress and look very well. So you can see that the advancement of the projects are very good and that we even had to add 2 new columns with permit granted and FID of the project because these columns didn't even exist in the last presentation. You see that the quality of the partners is perfect. SUEZ is the biggest energy producer -- private energy producer in Czech Republic and one the biggest recycler in Europe -- one of the biggest recyclers in Europe, UNITANK, the biggest tank operator in Germany. VTTI, the biggest LNG operator in the world here in Greece, Thermo Lysi SA, that's the company behind that is already recycling most of the tires in Greece. So you see that the quality of the project is really, really high today. Yes. So just some information about that. So bike tire shredder with our partner, Schwalbe, is also a new announcement I can do. Schwalbe became shareholder of Pyrum end of 2024. We are building now together with Schwalbe, the biggest bike tire shredder in Europe. And hopefully, we can announce a completion of that end of this year. VTTI, I told you already that VTTI started now the project in Antwerp together with us, and the plan is to make a 90,000 tonne year plant, which will be the biggest plant Pyrum has ever built and the financing there are very sure. With Thermo Lysi SA in practice, we can say that they received the permit, and we can hopefully soon announce that the detailed engineering has started there. And with Siemens, it's also new that the newest Siemens operation system called Siemens Neo is for the first time, so it's the world premier implemented in Pyrum Line 2 and 3, and that will cause in the soon future, international commercials together with Siemens and Pyrum. So now best practice, that is something most of you know already. It's just again, for those people who want to read it at home or are not so aware about it. Our environmental impact assessment has shown that we save 965 kilogram of CO2 per tonne of used tires, which is better than material recycling, better than Siemens plant and better than EBS power plants. And if you compare that to the mix of recycling in Germany, we are 72% better in CO2 savings. And that's the reason why companies like Audi are already producing clothes that are based on our oil that is used by BASF to make the polymer fibers. That's why Continental has signed a big off-take agreement with us, which is completely new in the tire industry because there has never been a 10-year offtake guarantee. Usually, they have 1- or 2-year contracts, but a 10-year offtake guarantee for the full production of full plant has never existed in the automotive industry. And Continental also officially announced that they want to be 100% sustainable by 2050. So that's impossible without using recovered carbon black from old tires. And that said, that was a big milestone for us. And our CO2 savings are one of the big arguments here. And Schwalbe, also one of our shareholders, they have already about 2,000 bike tires, which is 1/3 of the German market in which we, together with Schwalbe, collect bike tires, bike tires come to Pyrum. We do our thing, so make rCB and oil and already from the rCB, Schwalbe is making new tires. And the new bike shredder that we do with Schwalbe is here that we can increase the volume because our bottleneck today is that we cannot shred more bike tires. So -- and that's why we invest here together. And they became shareholder at Pyrum in November '24. And just recently in April '25, we signed also a 10-year offtake guarantee for rCB and the delivery of bike tires with Schwalbe. Mercedes-Benz has already an older partnership in which it was shown that from a waste stream, it is possible to make polymer granulate that are today used in Mercedes S-Class, EQS and also today E-Class. That was to show that recycling is not always a down cycling. It can also be kind of an upcycling because the outer door handle of the Mercedes S-Class is one of the most quality polymer pieces in a modern car. So -- and that was the idea here to show that from a waste stream, you can do a high-tech polymer car or part of the car, and we even won the Materialica award for that. So that is a reputation. So you can also see that in the -- when you look at the presentation at home. So I hand over to Kai for the finance part.

Yes. Good morning, everybody. We are coming to the plant economics. They are unchanged. We still expect that we treat 22,700 tonnes of tires in a standard plant with 3 reactors, receiving a gate fee of around EUR 100 per tonne. And so have a mix in revenues, EUR 2.3 million for gate fee, around EUR 1.7 million for steel, around EUR 3 million for the oil and the most important part, EUR 10.6 million for the rCB. We calculate direct cost of EUR 2.6 million, OpEx EUR 4.9 million and then roughly coming to an EBITDA of EUR 10 million. The only change on this slide is that we clarified here that there is no contingency or financing cost included as we always also have client partners for SPVs in the call. And regarding the rollout financing, we still have the contract with BASF. We have been paid out EUR 14.3 million until today from the EUR 50 million tranche. So there is enough capital for the participation in the plan with SUEZ, where we want to get 49% on the plant in Perl-Besch. We are in discussions with the government with officials if they can support our CapEx as the total finance now went up to 62% at EUR 62 million. As Pascal said, we have a framework agreement for long-term acceptance on Pyrum rCB. That means that all that what we produce here in Dillingen and in Perl-Besch in the future is covered by the contract. And the MaxCap-test in TAD 2 and TAD 3 was successful so that all 3 production lines are in parallel operation. So coming now to the figures that we published this morning. Sorry, first overview of the shareholders of Pyrum. So Pascal Klein and family still holds around 19%. Biggest shareholder is Pascal Klein with 8.8%. Amel Holding is the holding of the family. Michael Kapf is still on board, one of our founders, Benifin, one of the first investors at 7.4%. They also participated in the last capital increase by, let's say, indirect shareholders that are, yes, connected with Benifin. Jurgen Opitz also participated is now at 7.3%. BASF 7.1%, Schwalbe, the new shareholder on board, new strategic one with 4% and Continental around 0.9%. And actually, we have more than 5,500 shareholders. Now we're coming to the financials that we announced this morning. We increased our revenues by 76% to EUR 2 million. This was mainly due to the oil production that we could deliver. As most of you know, there is that a lot of the rCB that we actually produced is on stock. That's also reflected in the increase of finished and unfinished goods that went up to EUR 699,000. This also includes contractual awards with SPV partners. So the operation output was -- went up by 150% to EUR 2.7 million. Other own work capitalized slightly went down as most of the investments for the plant in Dillingen has been done in previous years and most of the capital needs and investments for Dillingen -- for Perl-Besch will start this year and next year. So total output was at EUR 11.7 million after EUR 12.8 million in the previous year. We have better results on the EBITDA, minus 5.9% after EUR 7 million in the previous year. Depreciation went up as the shredder has been completed in Dillingen and the depreciation started. So EBIT was slightly better at minus EUR 8.9 million. On the other hand, interest and similar expenses went up as we took more debt from -- especially from BASF. Net loss for the year is EUR 10.1 million minus. And now coming to the forecast. We expect revenues for 2025 at EUR 4.5 million to EUR 6 million. This requires that the pelletizer is -- the new pelletizer is up and running in July that we then, over the next month, can increase the capacity to 80% production rate. Total output should be around EUR 20 million to EUR 25 million, and the EBIT will still be negative at minus EUR 8.5 million to minus EUR 10.5 million. There's one remark. I'm sorry, I have to do, one of our analysts found out this morning. We had a typo in the annual report in our forecast for 2026. Our plan is to achieve breakeven on EBITDA basis in 2026. Unfortunately, in the report, we are missing 2 letters. There was an EBIT, but it's EBITDA that we should achieve as breakeven in 2026 and then positive results on net basis in 2027. That's from the financials. Regarding the outlook, we are still in the negotiations with the banks. They are very -- for the financing in Perl-Besch, they are very supportive. And as said before, we are also talking to the [ challenge ] that we can quickly find solutions that the plant in Perl-Besch is fully financed. As said in the past, long-term -- long lead items have already been ordered, and we are expecting building permits very soon. So now to hand over to Pascal.

Yes. From the recovered carbon black also, I told you last time that we are trying to improve the throughput of the old mill and pelletizer, which is the one that is constantly running. That one looks good. We found 2 crews to get more through it. The problem here is you cannot -- as we are, as told before, delivering security relevant raw materials to the automotive industry. If you have a good idea, you can test it, but then you have to do a management of change. So you have to inform Continental what are the findings. So there was a big meeting with Continental here. They watched at the plant, and they found our idea is very good. And now we are just waiting for the green light from Continental so that we can do the planned changes. We tried it already, but when you do these trial ones, you are not allowed to sell the product that comes out as long as that management of change is not improved. But I don't want to say too much, but it was much better than before on the old line. And I said the new mill and pelletizer, which is 5 to 6x bigger than the old one, we just wait that the commissioning is done. And here, we are then at about -- yes, you will see it in the numbers. I said 5 to 6x more. And yes, from the staff side, we changed a little bit the organigram. We have some new employees. As said we put in place a night shift at the shredder so that the shredder has more capacity. It's bad if you lose 3 to 4 hours on a day shift for maintenance and the shredder is only allowed to work on over the day and you lose the time overnight. So we are also running now night shifts on shredder or at least late shifts. And we start now also, which is an important thing, and that was one of the findings in the technical due diligence that we should quickly start finding employees for Perl-Besch so that, that is secured. And so we will start soon with that already so that we are ready once the building starts there and of course, when the production starts. And yes, one last thing now. We have a new Pyrum man as we call him them sometimes Felix Magath. He came to us as a shareholder of Pyrum. He bought Pyrum shares from the market like many others. And he was so convinced about Pyrum that yes, he presented himself here at Pyrum and he asked how he can help. Yes, now he is officially since last week, our brand ambassador. And believe me, he knows everybody. He knows so many people in politics and investors and wealthy private persons and yes, the idea with Felix is to get more hearings from the political side because we found out that in Brussels or in Berlin, Pyrum is not known. They really think that what Pyrum is doing is future music that there will only be technologies at the stage where Pyrum is today in 20, 30 years. So there are now laws in discussions in Brussels and Berlin that are not taking -- they're not aware of us. So they are not taking our technology into account. And that is -- it's not blocking us in any way, but it is not helping us either. So what we want is that the new laws and regulations are pushing the industry more in our direction, not just because they believe in it, but also because they have to because it's in the regulation. There Felix can open a lot of doors, and he's already doing it. And of course, we all want that the Pyrum share is more traded, so that it is a more liquid share and that Pyrum is better known, not just in Germany, but around Europe. And Felix is really also well known outside of Germany. After the press release, we got requests from Spain, from Italy, why is Felix Magath working with Pyrum. So that gives more international awareness. And on the right side, you can find some citations from Felix about Pyrum. In the German is the original one, the English is the translation. So thank you all for your attention, and that is from my side and Kai's side, the end of the presentation. So now we can go to Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] We have some questions. I guess the first one was already answered concerning the EBITDA and the breakeven in the guidance of '26. A follow-up question. For this guideline, what is the basis of uptime of pelletizer? What share of working capital CB to be pelletized in your earnings guidance?

So we expect that we can ramp up the pelletizer very quick, but we stay very conservative. So in the assumptions, it's that the LTV should go up from 0% to 80% till end of the year. That's the assumption for the forecast and that in 2026, we are constantly running at 80%.

And there was a follow-up today. For SPVs, what is the contract terms versus earlier years?

I don't completely get this question, but there has not been that many changes, let's say. We still expect that we can participate in an SPV. We still expect that we can be part of it by 15% to 49% as there is always the goal by the partner to have the majority. And that what has changed since the IPO is mostly that we don't see ourselves anymore as a full EPC contractor. That part of the plant could be directly ordered with the [indiscernible] supplier as an example, and that we get fee for the sales contract.

And we have a question from Mr. Hinkel. Has the pelletizer become more expensive as it is bigger than anticipated?

No, it was very funny when we have not known before that it is the biggest one in the world. There has not been changing on the purchase prices, but Pascal found out that, informed by many sites that it is the biggest one.

Yes we didn't know that, in fact. And honestly speaking, on the building plans and everything, it looked much smaller. So it is more a perception, how can I say that, but it didn't really become bigger.

And a follow-up, can you update us on the financing process now that Pyrum received T9?

I think it means TRL 9, so Technical Readiness Level, I hope I interpreted that correctly. Yes, because it's opening doors. I can tell you most infrastructure funds and most project financing banks are not speaking with you at all when you don't have Technical Readiness Level 9, and that is more or less opening now a lot of doors that had been closed before.

And what are the assumptions behind the guidance? How much pelletize rCB will be produced in 2025?

Kai, do you have the number exactly how much it will be in tons? As Kai said, the plan says that we start in July with production and that the ramp-up goes up from July to December from 0% to 80%. But Kai has done the model, so the detailed numbers are in the model. What I can also say that, that is conservative, but usually, it should be much quicker, but we learned in the past that, that will be conservative and have good news afterwards.

Yes. But in the planning, if we expect EUR 1.7 million revenues from rCB at prices of EUR 1,500, that would mean 1,100 tonnes of rCB in 2025.

And we move on with another participant. congrats. Well, thank you very much for the excellent progress. And a few questions. Did you already have a celebration at the Dillingen plant opening with TV? And if not, when is it? Very practical question.

Yes. No. In fact, not yet. Because the asphalt work was only accomplished 4 weeks ago, and there's still a little asphalt work to be done. But yes, you are right. That is something that we could really take into consideration now. Now the plant is beautiful, running and yes, it's time to invite them. But there's no plan yet.

Okay. And as your pelletizer is not in operation, I assume you are filing material quantities of carbon black. Can you indicate what would be the value of the inventory at sales price?

Yes, it's around 800 tonnes that we have on stock and at EUR 1,500, that would mean 1.2 million. But you need to know that we cannot immediately treat that material into recover carbon black. We start most of that in Perl-Besch as we know that there -- let's say, it will be needed in the future. And the idea is to, let's say, start the plant building from the back that the mill and pelletizer will be one of the first parts that should get into commissioning as we already have enough material there.

So the idea really behind that is really that we look for a location where we can put the unmilled and unpelletized material so that we don't need to take it in our hands the second time because each transportation costs money. So that's why our new building site in Perl-Besch was not the building site itself, a hunger that is just next door from our new building site. So once the new mill and pelletizer in Perl-Besch is built, we just need to open the fence and we can treat it there. But the new mill pelletizer in Dillingen will have a lot of work to do with what comes out every day from the lines.

[Operator Instructions] That would be lovely. And we move on. Well, you have 2 businesses, development business where you work on the new plan and the production business. Investors would appreciate if you would be publishing EBITDA for the production business. Is this something you are considering?

Quite honest, not yet.

That was pretty clear. When do you expect the final investment decision of your project partner in Greece?

We expect it in autumn when they have clear answers on subsidies and grants.

What I can tell is they are moving forward very quickly as they received the permit and they asked us very clearly what can we do right now in order to save time. And we offered them a new contract, which is preparing all the call for tenders and collecting all the offers so that they can collect the offers locally from groundworks, asphalt companies, hall builders and so on. So we do really now the detail to detail to detail engineering for them. And hopefully, we can soon announce that, that contract is signed because that is a nice revenue for Pyrum for our engineering team. So that once they have the financing complete, they can, the next day start building.

Great. And can you give us an idea of when the physical work will start in Greece and the Czech Republic?

Greece, as said, it's planned for end of the year as soon as they get -- the problem is when you ask for grants is you're not allowed to start before you get the final feedback. So that is the main issue with all grants. So in this perspective, politics are really slowing down these projects. You would like to start. If you have already some capital available, you could start, but you are not allowed to yes, put one hole in the ground before you get the answer from the authorities. So that is a little bit the delay here. And there will be no answer there before, September, October, I think it is, this year. So they cannot build before all everything that can be done there is preparing all the detailed engineering now. And in Czech Republic, Kai is more in that subject.

Yes. In Czech Republic, we are in the final negotiation of the shareholder agreement. As you know, we want to participate by 49% and want to have a fair agreement. So it's not a quick step. But yes, as I said, it's in a final decision. I will be there next week. And we know that they are already, let's say, contracting the oil with BASF directly that they get, let's say, all contracts done before they start building, and we expect building permit around October. It is all with the authorities now, and it should start then.

And then a question, when will SUEZ start on site in the U.K.?

Good question. What I can say about these big recycling companies is that they are very committed. So they really want to do it, but they are slow. And we deliver them right now a lot of data from our plant in Dillingen. For them, it's really important to see the actual operating data from the plant. And also they want long-term emission data from the plant. So we are now collecting for some months the emission data from the plant in Dillingen. And yes, they have now everything, not since a long time. I think it's just since 2 or 3 weeks that they have all the data they needed. And I hope that they get now all the green lights from their authorities that they know at least verbally from the authorities that we have no issues to build and then they can move on with the next steps.

And please, can you explain in more detail what is contained in the EUR 8 million capitalized work in progress item within your total output number?

I would ask if the one who asked that directly connect to me that we can get in more detail. In general, we put in, let's say, everything that is our work and material for -- especially here in Dillingen, but there were also capitalizations of parts, let's say, for the digital twin as an example. So please come back directly to me.

And then a question, what do you think about a further capital increase to accelerate Pyrum's expansion?

In general, we are always thinking in every direction. And we also brought in the report that we expect that there will be capital increase in the future to speed up the rollout and as we don't want to have, let's say, in the future capital increase just to pay interest, there will always be a mix.

And then a practical question. Are you participating this year in any investment conference? And what are the initiatives to broaden investor universe and increase investor awareness of the Pyrum opportunity?

Yes. We decided that we will participate in the HIT by Montega Hamburger Investorentagen. And traditionally, every year, we participate on the German Equity Forum and Eigenkapitalforum and the first time did this year with MWB and Investors Roundtable. So we are slowly but steadily increasing that activities, but still our core focus is on the financing and getting the projects done.

And I said before, Felix is now as our brand ambassador also there to bring a bigger awareness out in the world. And he knows he brings us into an area where we had no connections before, so in the sports area, and we all know many people are interested in sports and Felix Magath is one of the best known trainers in Europe. So he knows really everybody, and he has also planned to prepare roundtables with investors and dinners and so on. So yes, it could be a nice step forward.

And we go on with some last questions. In your report, you mentioned that disposal fees for ELC are currently under pressure due to exports to Turkey and India. Can you put a more precise figure on this?

More precise figure. I don't exactly know what is meant by that. The figures we have is those who were here in the presentation. So meaning that it went up from 10% to 33%, 30%, 33%. It depends on which report you look. On the other hand, Siemens companies are reducing their prices, and not the prices, the volumes and the recycling industry making rubber is also going down. So in fact, as of now, as there are not enough Pyrum plants and not enough other recycling alternatives, the high export is even needed because there is simply no other solution. And we cannot pile up tires here up to the sky so that we recycle them in the next year. So the export right now is not nice to see and it's putting some pressure on the price, but the European Union is hardly working on putting an export ban on tires and other polymers and plastics in the next year. So I don't know if this official information, but we are speaking a lot with politicians in Brussels lately. And the idea is to ban the export of tires outside of Europe until 2027. For that, several laws has to be changed. as, for example, the custom numbers as there is no custom number directly for used tires today. So you first need to create the legal basement to ban something and the plan is to do that until '27.

And I'll read out some more questions. But due to the time, I would suggest that you stop as the participants put more questions in our chat box, please take them and place them to the IR of the company. But I'll read out some last questions. Can you talk about the progress on the blade recycling business? Will you be progressing this within Pyrum? Or would you transfer it into another entity, which could raise capital independently?

So technically, we are working on that. Our R&D team has put in place a pilot unit. And today -- as of today, we are working a lot with the patent authority to get a patent through. So as we said before, we declare the patent. So that is not that you have the patent. And most investors are asking for IP. So it's always better to have actually declared patent that has a value. But on the other hand, there has been no decisions made yet if we do that in another entity or things like that. Honestly speaking, that question is new to me. And -- but it is good as a homework so that we can think about it.

And will there be always the same mill and pelletizer system of Hosokawa for every project? Do you expect further work and optimize and ramp up the mill and pelletizer to full output capacity?

I think this question could just be answered after the, let's say, ramp-up of the mill and pelletizer. As we have seen in the last years at Pyrum, there were many expectations also on some well-known suppliers. Hopefully, we can answer the question by yes.

It depends on how good they finish their work now and how good they are under pressure.

Well, great. And 2 more questions. Could you give some color on the plan with VTTI? What exactly will Pyrum do? Will it be only planning activities for some kind of EPC contractor? Do you expect cash flow only from the selling of the plant? Or will there also cash flows from licenses?

Yes, there will be cash flow from licenses. We are not just simply selling the technology or something like that. So the core part of the plant will be sold by us. We are not the EPC contract. That's more or less called EPCM. So we deliver a core part of the process. We will have the overall lead of the project, but things like shredding units or million pelletizer will be directly ordered by VTTI and monetize, it's not VTTI is clear today. We are in the pre-FEED and the FEED phase. So the idea here is now to make a basic engineering and part of the detailed engineering and to get the permit. But it is sure that Pyrum will not be co-shareholder in the plant itself because it is an LNG terminal. It is very complicated to take new shareholders in there because we would have to get access to the LNG terminal, all of that stuff. So they don't want that. Therefore, there is higher fees for the planned one-off fees and license fees. So there's -- I would say we found or we are almost done with finding a nice structure here together with VTTI so that both parties are happy.

Great. And one last question. Are you still working on separating H2 from pyrolysis gas?

Yes. On small burner because most separation technologies that were hardly announced in the market even didn't work or we don't develop the separator. We were looking with partners to find a system to separate our hydrogen from our gas. So there is no finished system you can buy. So that was more or less what many suppliers claim to be able to. So yes, the position where we are today, we would have to develop something ourselves or some developments from some big players that they have announced to come out in the next month will bring the big breakthrough, but the whole hydrogen discussion also in politics and on the market is going up and down. So sadly, we are not swimming in cash so that we can follow everything simultaneously. So we prefer to focus on things that are clear, and that is the project that have permits and projects that we can build ourselves. But it's not forgotten and it's not stopped.

Thank you very much. And we now worked out every question in the chat box. Should further questions arise at a later time, please feel free to contact Investor Relations. And by now, we, therefore, come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you for joining and all your questions. And a big thank you to the 2 gentlemen, Mr. Klein, Mr. Winkelmann for the presentation and the time you took to answer these questions. And I wish you all a lovely weekend. And with this, I hand over, again, to Mr. Klein for some famous last words.

That was not said before how much you cared, sorry. So thank you, everybody, for your attention. It was really a pleasure for me doing this presentation, like always, and thank you also for the well-thought questions. So for us, it's very important that everybody out there and all of our supporters understand what is happening. I can understand that not always everything that we do is directly understandable. So if you have questions, we are always there to answer them and our Investor Relations team. So I also wish you all a beautiful weekend. And as it looks, it will be sunny. So enjoy it.

Thank you very much.